The post-2015 development agenda requires policy coherence, where achievement
of development goals in one sector does not undermine the achievement of the
goals of another. It also recognises that cross-cutting issues like adaptation
to climate change need to be mainstreamed across multiple sectors. This paper
presents a policy analysis using the cases of Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia. It
analyses the water management ... Mehr anzeigen

The post-2015 development agenda requires policy coherence, where achievement
of development goals in one sector does not undermine the achievement of the
goals of another. It also recognises that cross-cutting issues like adaptation
to climate change need to be mainstreamed across multiple sectors. This paper
presents a policy analysis using the cases of Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia. It
analyses the water management and agricultural strategies and approaches
identified in a variety of policies and plans. These include national sector
policies for water and agriculture, National Development Plans, and climate
change policies and strategies, including National Adaptation Programmes of
Action and the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions submitted prior to
the 2015 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of
the Parties. It assesses the extent to which policies are coherent with one
another with regard to their treatment of climate change adaptation using
Qualitative Document Analysis. Findings identify that sector policies show
some degree of cross-thematic coherence, in particular around their
acknowledgement of the importance to address disaster management of floods and
droughts. However, policy statements are typified by a relative lack of
recognition of the need to develop supporting instruments and strategies that
address climate adaptation needs over longer timeframes. Climate change
policies explicitly call for significant investment in adaptation from the
international community. Where coherence between sector and climate policies
and strategies is strongest, the more recent climate policies largely
repackage existing sectoral policy statements. These findings can be
understood in the context of the uncertainty of climate change impacts for the
longer term (for which a wider variety of adaptations are identified),
alongside more event-driven disaster management planning where the impacts are
more immediate and obviously evident. This prioritisation is also linked to
development needs and the short-term nature of political cycles and economic
gain. For climate-resilient policy decision-making to make further headway, we
argue that governments need to embrace cross-sectoral planning more pro-
actively in order to foster greater policy coherence and to deliver more
climate resilient agriculture and water management.

Resilience- and adaptation-oriented policies are formulated and implemented
against a backdrop of struggles within and between nations, regions, classes,
ethnicities, and households. Even programs with the ostensible goal of
ensuring minimum livelihood for climate-vulnerable populations involve
tradeoffs and contests over the distribution of power and resources. Given
this, what are the effects of different social ... Mehr anzeigen

Resilience- and adaptation-oriented policies are formulated and implemented
against a backdrop of struggles within and between nations, regions, classes,
ethnicities, and households. Even programs with the ostensible goal of
ensuring minimum livelihood for climate-vulnerable populations involve
tradeoffs and contests over the distribution of power and resources. Given
this, what are the effects of different social protection policy regimes on
equity under climate change? The present paper seeks to address this question
through a comparative-historical analysis of adaptive social protection policy
regimes in Bangladesh and Ethiopia, two of the world’s most climate-vulnerable
countries. Preliminary conclusions suggest that, while Ethiopia has been
relatively more effective at shorter term safety net programs, Bangladesh has
been relatively more effective at longer term livelihood adaptations. I trace
these outcomes to their political roots: an authoritarian party-state in
Ethiopia with a vested interest in preserving stability but few incentives to
promote adaptive change, and a fragmented and clientelistic state in
Bangladesh that fails to ensure an equitable safety net but nonetheless has
successfully promoted adaptive climate-smart livelihood in important ways. I
conclude by discussing how both cases could benefit from improved bottom-up
accountability mechanisms, but in different ways.

This paper examines the extent to which and how the spread and design of
carbon trading systems worldwide have been shaped by international policy
diffusion. We highlight eight central design characteristics and identify nine
cases for further scrutiny. Focusing on similarities and differences across
the cases, we find that international diffusion can explain both converging
and diverging designs. While the former ... Mehr anzeigen

This paper examines the extent to which and how the spread and design of
carbon trading systems worldwide have been shaped by international policy
diffusion. We highlight eight central design characteristics and identify nine
cases for further scrutiny. Focusing on similarities and differences across
the cases, we find that international diffusion can explain both converging
and diverging designs. While the former observation is in line with the
traditional understanding of diffusion leading to convergence as actors adopt
a policy initiated by others, it is more striking that policy diffusion stands
forth as important for understanding design divergence. Evidence presented in
this paper demonstrates that diffusion mechanisms interact with and contribute
to the evolution in the policy as it diffuses over time. Hence, we argue that
policy convergence is not necessarily a great measure of diffusion because the
policy is not the same over time. The policy divergences, partly rooted in
different domestic conditions and political constraints, mean that no linked
global system is likely in the near future, although the spread of the policy
model can be seen as promising for a future emissions trading regime from
below.

Climate change will heavily impact on water and aggravate existing
inequalities. These inequalities result importantly, but not exclusively, from
actual physical shortages of water. Quite often, they are also the result of
social conditions. The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) repeatedly
address the issue of water (such as SDG 2, 6 or 14). This paper deals with
normative standards for a fair distribution of ... Mehr anzeigen

Climate change will heavily impact on water and aggravate existing
inequalities. These inequalities result importantly, but not exclusively, from
actual physical shortages of water. Quite often, they are also the result of
social conditions. The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) repeatedly
address the issue of water (such as SDG 2, 6 or 14). This paper deals with
normative standards for a fair distribution of water. By going so, it is
critical and constructive contribution to the debate about water invigorated
by the SDGs. It aims to identify potential injustices (critical) and argues
for more just solutions in the face of changing environmental conditions
(constructive). The paper starts by outlining that the aim of sustainable
development is about safeguarding the right to live in dignity for all present
and future generations. Moreover, it obligates that the natural and social
preconditions for such a life are to be protected and supported. Yet, the
difficulty in protecting a life of dignity lies in defining it by way of
universalistic ethical principles without ignoring the diversity of particular
ways of living it. This is why this paper, secondly, draws on the
deontological approach by the social ethicist Alan Gewirth in order to
determine what people need to live a life of dignity. Moreover, the paper
applies these insights to water and water governance. Finally, it will briefly
discuss implications for a fair distribution of water after the adoption of
the SDGs and Paris.

The emphasis of Socialist Ecological Civilization in the 18th congress of CPC
and the proposal of "Green Development" in the "Thirteen Five Year" Plan both
indicate that Ecological Civilization Construction has been raised to an
unprecedented height in China. Based on the theory of Social-Ecological
Transformation, this article elaborates if or to what extent China’s
Ecological Civilization Construction goes beyond the ... Mehr anzeigen

The emphasis of Socialist Ecological Civilization in the 18th congress of CPC
and the proposal of "Green Development" in the "Thirteen Five Year" Plan both
indicate that Ecological Civilization Construction has been raised to an
unprecedented height in China. Based on the theory of Social-Ecological
Transformation, this article elaborates if or to what extent China’s
Ecological Civilization Construction goes beyond the logic of capitalist
imperative, if environmental benefits still succumbs to the current political
and economic structures. It concludes that as the newest sustainable
discourse, Ecological Civilization has great influence on the formation and
enforcement of environmental policy in China. As a comprehensive and
systematic experiment concerning the change of mode of living and production,
divergent interpretations of Ecological Civilization Construction still exist
among officials in multi-level governance, which leads to different
preferences when implementing Ecological Civilization goals.The orientation of
growth in multilevel governments should be weakened and pioneer of change with
emancipatory horizon or ecological forms of production and living should be
encouraged.

Diffusion holds the key to both the mechanism of carbon emission and a
solution to the problem of emission excesses. In essence, diffusion represents
spatial dependence through connectivity between states and affects their
policies or even regulations entailed in the framework of global governance.
Even though it is of critical importance to climate governance in influencing
trust and incentives for cooperation, diffusion ... Mehr anzeigen

Diffusion holds the key to both the mechanism of carbon emission and a
solution to the problem of emission excesses. In essence, diffusion represents
spatial dependence through connectivity between states and affects their
policies or even regulations entailed in the framework of global governance.
Even though it is of critical importance to climate governance in influencing
trust and incentives for cooperation, diffusion has received limited attention
from international relations analysts of climate change. Using spatial
modeling and systemic international relations theories, we uncover that, on
average, diffusion adversely affects other states’ emission efficiency and
that emission by states with competitive trading activity is a major source of
the adverse diffusion. This result holds even if international and domestic
countervailing factors are taken into account. An in-sample simulation
analysis confirms that, for better climate governance, the adverse diffusion
can be neutralized by a coalition of numerous trading states, rather than by a
limited number of large states (e.g., G20).

Strategic Niche Management and Transition Management have been promoted as
useful avenues to pursue in order to achieve both specific product or process
changes and system transformation by focusing on technology development
through evolutionary and co-evolutionary processes, guided by government and
relevant stakeholders. However, these processes are acknowledged to require
decades to achieve their intended changes, ... Mehr anzeigen

Strategic Niche Management and Transition Management have been promoted as
useful avenues to pursue in order to achieve both specific product or process
changes and system transformation by focusing on technology development
through evolutionary and co-evolutionary processes, guided by government and
relevant stakeholders. However, these processes are acknowledged to require
decades to achieve their intended changes, a timeframe that is too long to
adequately address many of the environmental and social issues we are facing.
An approach that involves incumbents and does not consider targets that look
beyond reasonably foreseeable technology is likely to advance a model where
incumbents evolve rather than being replaced or displaced. Sustainable
development requires both disruptive technological and institutional changes,
the latter including stringent regulation, integration beyond coordination of
disparate goals, and changes in incentives to enable new voices to contribute
to integrated systems and solutions. This paper outlines options for a strong
governmental role in setting future sustainability goals and the pathways for
achieving them.

Various studies have pointed to urgency in decision-making as a major catalyst
for policy change. Urgency evokes a crisis frame in which emotions and
cognitive and institutional biases are more likely to be mobilised in support
of the policy preferences of powerful actors. As a result, decision-makers
tend to be driven by emotions and opportunity, often with detrimental results
for the quality of the planning process. ... Mehr anzeigen

Various studies have pointed to urgency in decision-making as a major catalyst
for policy change. Urgency evokes a crisis frame in which emotions and
cognitive and institutional biases are more likely to be mobilised in support
of the policy preferences of powerful actors. As a result, decision-makers
tend to be driven by emotions and opportunity, often with detrimental results
for the quality of the planning process. Although urgency has such a profound
influence on the quality of decision-making, little is known about how, when,
and by whom urgency is constructed in the planning process of public
infrastructure. By means of a discourse analysis, this study traces the
timing, motives and ways actors discursively construct a sense of urgency in
decisionmaking on the building of terminals for the reception and treatment of
the natural gas that was recently found off the coast of Israel. The results
of this study indicate that mostly government regulators, but also private
sector actors, deliberately constructed an urgency discourse at critical
moments during the planning process. By framing the planning process as
urgent, regulators manipulatively presented the policy issue as a crisis,
during which unorthodox planning practices were legitimised while the
consideration of alternative planning solutions was precluded. Thus, urgency
framing is a means of controlling both the discourse and the agenda - and
therefore an exercise in power-maintenance - by entrenched interest groups.

Today, many of the world’s river and lake basins are threatened by
environmental problems such as change in river flow, water pollution, reduced
water availability, salt water intrusion, or loss of plant and animal species.
International River Basin Organizations (RBOs) governing such rivers are
increasingly in need to address such challenges. At the same time many of them
receive technical and financial support from ... Mehr anzeigen

Today, many of the world’s river and lake basins are threatened by
environmental problems such as change in river flow, water pollution, reduced
water availability, salt water intrusion, or loss of plant and animal species.
International River Basin Organizations (RBOs) governing such rivers are
increasingly in need to address such challenges. At the same time many of them
receive technical and financial support from international donor
organizations. The paper therefore addresses the question of how international
financing institutions support adaptation capacities of RBOs. The aim is to
identify conditions under which donor support to RBOs can support adaptation
to environmental changes and improve the resilience of international water
basins. It does so by focusing on two cases in Southern Africa, including the
Orange-Senqu Basin and the Orange-Senqu River Commission (ORASECOM) as well as
the Cubango-Okavango Basin and the Permanent Okavango River Basin Water
Commission (OKACOM). The findings of the paper illustrate an ambivalent role
of international donors with regard to river basin adaptation. While they do
provide important means for adaptation in form of knowledge, financial and
technical resources, they can, at the same time, threaten the long-term
sustainability of adaptation activities.

Yamin and Depledge (2004) argue that the UNFCCC regime is characterised by
formal and informal coalitions, alliances, and political groups. Blaxekjær and
Nielsen (2014) have demonstrated how new groups since COP15 have transformed
the narrative positions and negotiations space in the UNFCCC, creating bridges
as well as new trenches between North and South in relation to the principle
of Common But Differentiated ... Mehr anzeigen

Yamin and Depledge (2004) argue that the UNFCCC regime is characterised by
formal and informal coalitions, alliances, and political groups. Blaxekjær and
Nielsen (2014) have demonstrated how new groups since COP15 have transformed
the narrative positions and negotiations space in the UNFCCC, creating bridges
as well as new trenches between North and South in relation to the principle
of Common But Differentiated Responsibility. As the UNFCCC regime readjusts
after COP21, these new narrative positions and negotiations space should be
re-examined. Through original data such as official statements from groups,
observations at UN climate conferences (2011-2015), and interviews with
delegates and experts, the paper analyses the narrative position of the Like
Minded group of Developing Countries (LMDC), an influential political group
under the UNFCCC established in 2012. Following Blaxekjær and Nielsen’s (2014)
policy-oriented narrative approach to IR the paper analyses LMDC’s identity,
the problems identified by LMDC and the solutions to these problems, and the
paper identifies five central characteristics of the dominant LMDC narrative.
The analysis also touches upon what narrative techniques are used in
constructing the LMDC identity. This framework reveals the embeddedness of
narratives in practice as they unfold in the formation of new alliances and
ruptures in old ones. This paper contributes to the emerging Narrative in IR
research agenda with a policy-oriented model of analysis. The paper also
contributes to the broader research agenda on the post-Paris UNFCCC regime,
and argues that as long as CBDR/RC is a major unresolved issue – an
essentially contested concept – as long will the LMDC play a prominent role in
the UNFCCC regime.

Communities facing the effects of climate change are actively trying to boost
their resilience. At the same time, governments are mainstreaming climate
change into their development frameworks. Close examination of current
practice, however, points at a disconnect between government policy and
community initiatives. This study explores how strengthening specific
capabilities at various levels can ensure synchronization ... Mehr anzeigen

Communities facing the effects of climate change are actively trying to boost
their resilience. At the same time, governments are mainstreaming climate
change into their development frameworks. Close examination of current
practice, however, points at a disconnect between government policy and
community initiatives. This study explores how strengthening specific
capabilities at various levels can ensure synchronization of policy and
practice and further community resilience in face of climate change. Choosing
an approach that appreciates the interplay of top-­‐down and bottom-­‐up
logics towards performance under stress, it illust rates that understanding
resilience in terms of capacity opens the door to practical thinking on
policies as well as practices. Evidence is taken from case studies in Chile
and Vietnam to show how governments can play an enabling role when connecting
their efforts to initiatives taken by communities. At the same time,
top-­‐down structures, such as the United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), can help
to break silos between different (inter)national political agendas and
underscore the need to link top-­‐down and bottom-­‐up approaches to ensure
resilience. This paper contends that improving communities' adaptive capacity
demands bridging the disconnect between multiple levels of policy and
practice. In doing so, different, and too often conflicting, values,
interests, and political agendas need to be aligned. Moreconcretely, we found
that resilience, as an emergent property of human systems, can be enhanced
when government and local stakeholders work together in a number of specific
areas. For instance, combining multi-­‐stakeholder platforms in which diverse
actors – ranging from policy-­‐makers to researchers to community
representatives – translate lessons learned at the community level intolocal
and national policy, with initiatives aimed at strengthening capacitiesand
ensuring access to relevant assets at the community level.

After two weeks of intense negotiations at the 21st Conference of the Parties
(COP 21) in December 2015 in Paris - the 196 Parties to the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) agreed on the COP Decisions
and Paris Agreement. The UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon, described the
Paris Agreement as a ‘monumental triumph for people and our planet1’. The
Paris agreement is a return to the ‘pledge ... Mehr anzeigen

After two weeks of intense negotiations at the 21st Conference of the Parties
(COP 21) in December 2015 in Paris - the 196 Parties to the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) agreed on the COP Decisions
and Paris Agreement. The UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon, described the
Paris Agreement as a ‘monumental triumph for people and our planet1’. The
Paris agreement is a return to the ‘pledge and review’ approach of the early
days of global climate policy – middle ground between national pledges for
climate action within a global architecture of review and collaboration. For
the last twenty years, international climate change policy has been focused on
the search for a centrally negotiated multilateral climate treaty with all
countries as signatories. Yet since its inception, adapting the top-down
multilateral treaty model to the challenge of climate change has been a
Sisyphean task. The new approach has broken a deadlock and created a sense of
optimism – but trust and legitimacy in the regime still needs to be built to
ensure performance. The devil is the detail – right balance between top-down
measures and bottom-up flexibility are needed for specific challenges related
to ensuring equity, mobilizing finance, driving technological change and
ensuring climate resilient development. In this paper we enroll theoretical
insights from the work of Elinor Ostrom on polycentric governance, to see how
a durable, hybrid climate regime could emerge out of the Paris Agreement and
facilitate equitable and ambitious climate outcomes. The paper is divided into
four sections: we first examine the road to Paris –the lessons from the last
thirty years of climate policy for the future regime; next we review theory –
what are the theoretical insights from the work of Elinor Ostrom on
polycentric governance; we examine how the ‘hybrid’ architecture of the new
regime might play out in dealing with specific issues: setting ambition,
ensuring differentiation, legal form, mitigation and adaptation; and lastly
weanalyze the way forward – building trust and legitimacy and encouraging the
‘ground swell’ of actors.

The Brazilian economy is not decarbonizing and current policies are highly
unlikely to change this. Expanding and diversifying the supply of renewable
energy would improve price stability and enhance energy supply and access. Why
do Brazilian governments adopt policy objectives and instruments which forego
the significant benefits available from ambitious decarbonization objectives,
and how can we explain differences ... Mehr anzeigen

The Brazilian economy is not decarbonizing and current policies are highly
unlikely to change this. Expanding and diversifying the supply of renewable
energy would improve price stability and enhance energy supply and access. Why
do Brazilian governments adopt policy objectives and instruments which forego
the significant benefits available from ambitious decarbonization objectives,
and how can we explain differences across sectors? We analyze objectives and
instruments in hydropower, transport fuels, solarand wind energy. With the
exception of hydropower, we find that the principle barrier to decarbonization
are policy inconsistencies. In solar and, to a lesser extent, wind energy,
national content requirements, a lack of R&amp;D; subsidies for building up
domestic manufacturing capacities as well as the design of electricity
auctions have stymied expansion. In transport fuels, the combination of
inconsistent fiscal incentives and a price cap on gasoline have weakened the
bioethanol sector in recent years. Emissions from the energy system are on a
long-term upwards trajectory, present policies also limit Brazil’s ability to
contribute to global mitigation efforts.

This paper explores the political opportunities and challenges associated with
facilitating integration of climate change mitigation and adaptation in land
use policy processes across levels of governance in Indonesia. Since the 2nd
IPCC assessment report it has been recognized that mitigation and adaptation
display important synergies in the land use sector (Klein et al. 2005, Nabuurs
et al. 2007). While previous ... Mehr anzeigen

This paper explores the political opportunities and challenges associated with
facilitating integration of climate change mitigation and adaptation in land
use policy processes across levels of governance in Indonesia. Since the 2nd
IPCC assessment report it has been recognized that mitigation and adaptation
display important synergies in the land use sector (Klein et al. 2005, Nabuurs
et al. 2007). While previous research has proposed various ways to integrate
adaptation and mitigation activities (Murdiyarso et al. 2005), we know little
about what is needed to effectively integrate policy decision-making processes
and policy objectives across levels of governance (Locatelli et al. 2015,
Doherty and Schroeder 2011, Ravikumar 2015). We understand multi-level
governance as ‘the existence of overlapping competencies among multiple level
of governments and the interaction of policy actors across those level’, which
result in ‘multi-level policy networks’ (Marks et al. 1996: 41-2) and reflect
a multi-actor polycentric polity structure (Mayntz 1994, Ostrom 2010).
Mechanisms that determine the structure of cross-level interactions – whether
they result in dominance, separation, merger, negotiated agreement or systems
change – are determined by: i) authority and power differentials; ii) level
and limits of decentralization; iii) contrasting discourse; iv) cognitive
transitions; and v) blocking - or supporting - policy coalitions (Young 2006).
This paper investigates multi-level governance processes within the sub-
domains of climate change mitigation and adaptation in the land use sector. It
focuses in particular on assessing the differences and the level of
integration among these two sub-domains across national and sub-national
governance levels. It does so by investigating the role of policy coalitions
and of central policy actors in facilitating interactions across national,
province and district levels in Indonesia. It adopts an institutional approach
and social network analysis approach (Scott 2000, Young 2006). The study is
based on fieldwork undertaken between 2014 and 2015 in Indonesia. It is based
on 120 interviews with policy actors across the national level and in one
province (West Kalimantan) and in one district level (Kapuas Hulu).

A growing number of cities are preparing for climate change impacts by
developing adaptation plans. However, little is known about how these plans
and their implementation affect the vulnerability of the urban poor. We
critically assess initiatives in eight cities worldwide and find that land use
planning for climate adaptation can exacerbate socio-spatial inequalities
across diverse developmental and environmental ... Mehr anzeigen

A growing number of cities are preparing for climate change impacts by
developing adaptation plans. However, little is known about how these plans
and their implementation affect the vulnerability of the urban poor. We
critically assess initiatives in eight cities worldwide and find that land use
planning for climate adaptation can exacerbate socio-spatial inequalities
across diverse developmental and environmental conditions. We argue that urban
adaptation injustices fall into two categories: acts of commission when
interventions negatively affect or displace poor communities and acts of
omission when they protect and prioritize elite groups at the expense of the
urban poor.